March 21, 2016

Plot By Nora Ephron Hubbard

This is the part in the romantic comedy where the romance hits a snag and the boy and the girl retreat to their corners to vent to their best friends in order to explain their inner turmoil to the audience. In this format, the best friends don’t even speak or offer any comfort. They are cardboard cutouts of Bobby Truckerhat and Girl Who is Probably Leisl Ishii. There’s no room for their cute, b plot, what with all the basketball action!

“It took a long time to get comfortable being me. Now, overnight I’m not.” – Man, I like to think I’m not the sort of person who laughs at clunky depictions of teen angst, but then again I voluntarily write for this blog.

Guess we just have to hope that these kids can figure out what most of us figure out only long after high school, that you can’t let stupid people’s stereotypes define you. I think Max especially has some growing up to do. “Sheepish” might be charming, “embarrassed” is kind of insulting.

Kenzie: “It took a long time to get comfortable being me. Especially all the time in the weight room, doing upper body work until I had to walk through doors sideways. At least no one paid attention … who in this country pays attention to international rugby? Even my parents didn’t go to the games, and my grandmother thought I was traveling with a marching bagpipe band. Then I landed in Milford, where the one radio station and the one newspaper cover high school sports like the New York Post covers the Yankees. Now I’m famous for an incident that lasted two seconds and didn’t even result in an arrest. People pack the stands at the games to mock me … who in this country goes to a high school girls’ basketball game? Am I making any sense?”
Leisl: “Not really listening. If you were paying any attention to my posture, you’d have realized I need to use your bathroom.”